Month: August 2016

Three Court Calendars of the Sullivan County Court.

To us these are quite novel. Although they were obviously very familiar to practicing attorneys a century and more ago, we have not encountered other specimens of similar material.

Title page of a court calendar for Sullivan County, NY

Information includes the attorneys in the county were at that time (they’re listed), the county officers (likewise listed), and, interestingly, the grand jurors and the trial jurors for the term are listed too. It specifies which cases would be heard, and approximately upon what date.

Among the litigants, we say some familiar names, including a railroad that was never completed – the Liberty and Jeffersonville Electric Railway – suggesting that without even operating it succeeded in running afoul of some people (the investors, perhaps?). Regardless of its historical value, it’s fascinating to look at these relics of a judicial system that is now transformed into a far different animal.

Here’s another new download from the Connecticut Quarterly, Volume IV (1898).

It did not take much to be considered a Tory during the times of the American Revolution — being committed to maintaining the status quo was really the only requirement to be categorized as such. As a consequence, Connecticut had many, many people who fell in this category.

As the article points out, not all were subjected to criminal prosecution, but there were many ways in which Connecticut’s Tories paid for their loyalty to King and to the status quo. The “Tory effect” was also lasting. Descendents of Tories often found that it was prudent to move westward rather than stay in their Connecticut home towns with the stigma of being the child or even later descendant of a Tory.

This could result in whole communities forming in newly settled areas in which the occupants generally were guarded about where they came from and why they had elected to settle where they did.

Our second publication of Southern History in the last month is this important volume listing the occupations and addresses of more than 1000 graduates of Emory College (now Emory University) in Georgia.

The volume includes some history of the college and other supporting documents, but most important is the information provided about the graduates themselves. Here’s the table of contents:

Table of Contents

More information is available at our main website, where you can also download this document.

Quinlan’s History of Sullivan County is considered the definitive history of Sullivan County, New York up until 1873.

James H. Quinlan, historian

While we were working through those early years in Quinlan’s History, we discovered that it was sometimes hard to tie all those events together in a sequential way. To help us understand Sullivan County history better, we decided to use Quinlan to help develop a timeline of those years. Suddenly much was made clear.

We’re glad to be able to offer this timeline free for your use. Just click below to download it with our compliments.

If you find that this timeline raises your curiosity and makes you want to read the whole book, there’s no reason not to do so. There are several free scanned versions of Quinlan you can download, but our favorite is one scanned by Penn State University. A link to a free version we like is on our main website on our Quinlan page, HERE.

After you download it, you might discover what we did: that a 700 page book really needs an index. No one can fault Quinlan for not providing one, given all that he did provide us with. But we did decide to do something to make up for his omission. We indexed Quinlan ourselves. While you are on our Quinlan page, you will probably notice that we sell our index. Frankly, it was a lot of work, and we think you will find that it is worth the price.

This is one of the oldest high school yearbooks we’ve republished, and also one of the best. High school yearbooks were different animals, back before the roaring 20s — indeed, high schools were! Not everyone went to high school, just for openers.

Hartford, Connecticut, was also a different city. Hartford was prosperous then. This was a time when the city (and probably the state) were governed by the “Seven Bishops” — the Episcopal Bishop of Connecticut, and the CEOs of the six major insurance companies headquartered there that made Hartford the Insurance Capital of America.

This is a remarkable social document, and it is available now as a download now, for $5.00.

We are happy to announce the re-publication of this comprehensive 1912 History of Garland, Maine, by Lyndon Oak, as a download.

Lyndon Oak, author of History of Garland, Maine

This volume, which includes a 12 page index, includes just about anything you might ever want to know about Garland from its founding until just after the Civil War. If you are interested in Penobscot County, ME, the History of Garland, Maine should be of interest to you.

To help you more easily determine whether this is of interest to you, we also have provided the index to this volume on our website (where you can also order the download).

This is an important piece of Confederate military history, one that has not been published elsewhere. At the same time, it is a snapshot of one of the most important cities of the Confederacy during the early years of the Civil War.

When Charleston, SC, was under martial law during the Civil War (or the War Between the States), the person in command of the entire city was the Provost Marshal of Charleston. He was responsible for all activities in the city, both military and civilian.

During this period, the Provost Marshal, Colonel Alexander Haskell Brown, kept a “letter book” that today serves as a chronicle of the period of military law. (For those who might not know the concept of a letter book, back in the days before typewriters and carbon paper, official correspondence was hand written, then hand copied to a “letter book” so a record of the correspondence could be kept. Frequently, correspondence received was also copied to the letter book. As you can imagine, this letter book covers many topics germane to a city under martial law.)

Robert G. (Gerry) Carroon, the editor of this document, hand copied the original letter book, which is in the archives of the University of South Carolina, and transcribed it. A number of years ago, at his request, we published this document on CD-ROM. When we discontinued the CD in the process of phasing out our CD business, the material became unavailable for a period of time. We are happy to say that Provost Marshal of Charleston is again available, this time as a download.

Please CLICK HERE to read more about it and, perhaps, download a copy.

Last month we announced that we’re retiring our CD-ROM product line so we can concentrate on downloads. This will likely be your last chance to get the CD-ROMs!

Our first CD-ROM product

Here’s an inventory of our remaining CD-ROMs, and how many copies we still have left:
Child’s Gazetteer of Lewis County, NY — 1 left
Lime Rock: an illustrated walking tour — 2 left
Erie County directory for 1924 — 3 left
Child’s Gazetteer for Wayne County, NY — 4 left
Minisink and Port Jervis — 3 left
New Milford: 230 years — 1 left
Nevada, Missouri Directory – 1 left
History of Garland, Maine — 3 left
Suffield Quarter Millennial Plus — 2 left
New Index of Quinlan’s History of Sullivan County, NY — 1 left
Fountain County’s Activities in the World War — 2 left
Worcester Directory for 1871 — 4 left
Rhode Island volume 1 — 2 left
Genessee County Collection — 2 left
Catholic Families of Kentucky — 3 left
Blue Book of Newton. MA for 1910 — 2 left
History of Litchfield, CT — 3 left
Child’s Gazetteer of Sullivan County, NY — 3 left
Maine State Prison Report for 1907 — 4 left
Emory College Alumni Register for 1910 — 3 left
Landmarks and Memorials of Paxton, MA — 1 left
Memories of Liberty, NY volume 1 — 3 left
Middletown (CT) collection — 1 left
Memories of Liberty, NY volume 2 — 2 left

—When we run out of a particular CD-ROM, we won’t be offering that CD anymore.
—Shortly we will begin to convert the contents of discontinued CDs to our array of downloads. There will be some delay while we do so, but eventually much of the present CD content will be available as downloads.

If you’ve been contemplating buying one of our CD-ROMs, now is the time to act!!Here’s the CATALOG — take a look!